Call of Cthulhu: The Haunting - RPG Review
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- čas přidán 28. 12. 2020
- Taking a second look at the classic Call of Cthulhu adventure, "The Haunting," easily the most played CoC scenario of all time. Now that it's been a few years since my original (and very rough) video, I decided to give it a much-needed and expanded update.
You can download the free Quickstart Rules, including The Haunting, at: DriveThru RPG: www.drivethrurpg.com/product/....
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If for whatever reason you want to watch the original The Haunting review, here you go: • Call of Cthulhu: The H...
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Guest starring Jack the NPC (and featuring his original debut)
#ttrpg #callofcthulhu - Hry
Hey here is the author of The Haunting to report that not only was it the very first adventure ever played for Call of Cthulhu, it actually PREDATES Call of Cthulhu, because I originally wrote it up for a modern horror game I was creating in 1978 which never saw print (called American Gothic). When I got to do Call of Cthulhu, I just adapted the adventure.
I'm sure that in 1978, if someone told you that people would still be talking about your adventure 40 years later, you wouldn't have believed them.
This is why the internet is amazing!
The name American Gothic makes me think of 40k but with overtly American themes. Loved running the module even if it was in a system with a much less metal name.
Wow, talk about cool! Sandy himself chiming in. Seth you are bigtime now! Great review as usual.
Can't get more eldritch than a scenario that was born before the game it was published for.
Seeing a Seth sworkowski call of Cthulhu adventure review pop up in your notifications is like getting that sweet, sweet $600 stimulus check... The best thing ever, and simultaneously leaving you in desperate need of more.
I call it my socialism dependability check
Yes Ill take my $2000 thank you
Hello Seth, this is In-Ter-Net and we appreciate you.
@@darkowl9 ?
Seeing Corbitt in the reflections is a great idea.
One of my investigators got involved because the current version of the cult had kidnapped his daughter. If I’d had the idea of the reflection I’d have made it her.
@Tom Williams Music from a darkened room. An excellent adventure. Would love to see Seth reviewing it.
I was thinking of that as I watched this. When he said that, I was thinking, "Great minds think alike"
I added possessed rats to the scenario. They did a lot of running around and scaring the crap out of the investigators.
The best effect I added was a radio (YT video) that wasn't plugged in that started playing music. An investigator turned it off. It turned back on. Turned off. Turned on. Smashed the radio and walks away, the radio turns back on but the music is slower (YT lets you slow down the playback making it creepier). The investigator burned it in the fireplace, it finally stopped playing. While they were upstairs, they could hear the radio again coming from the living room. It was hilarious. The player was freaking out about it the whole time.
This is gold. xD
@@PimPimGamer this is the video I used. czcams.com/video/Ywae7XQ3Trg/video.html
The blog I plugged in my other comment pointed me to it.
I'M USING THAT
I love this idea!!! Even better if i have some scratchy sounding old timey music available to start and stop playing.
@@grymhild "jeepers creepers where'd you get those peepers"
"We're hoping we can make contact with GLAHHHHHHH!" Jacks face! OMFG!! I died.
I absolutely lost it during that XD
I did react to the jump scare too.
Absolute best thing I've seen in any of Seth's videos. So great.
I believe Jack the NPC is an aspect of Moorcock's Eternal Champion, with some version of himself in every fictional universe, much like Scott Brown Realty are real estate moguls in every possible universe.
No Jack is secretly Stan Lee.
I remember running this as my first ever CoC game and decided to play in the first place because of your videos. I remember one of my players (who had by far the best character for hilarious stories) decided to sleep in the house by himself and had the police show up because he started shooting the moving bed.
One of the coolest ironies of Call of Cthulhu is having the players treated by the authorities as being utterly batshit crazy on the rare occaisions that they are completely sane and lucid.
Yes, I know, one should not laugh at someone getting stabbed with a knife, but the bit with Ghost Trackerz was well done.
That one made me laugh, too.
There is a side quest in Cyberpunk 2077 where you have to evict a building. I yelled, "SCOTT BROWN"
I've heard an unverified rumor that there is a Scott Brown reference on a stock ticker in the game. No one has been able to confirm that, though.
@@SSkorkowsky I am so going to look for that now. I'll post a screenshot if I find it.
I'd appreciate it if you do. I'm curious to see if it's true or not. Eventually I'll start 2077 myself, but as much as I want to dive in, my video game time is rather limited, so I'm waiting for the bugs to get fixed and some magic future date when I have more free-time to dive into it.
@@SSkorkowsky Yeah, best to wait until the bugs are ironed out.
@@SSkorkowsky Had looked for references like that before on forums, did not find any (probably for legal reasons). Although on the same end many people didn't pick up on the fact that the quest-giver in the "The Office" reference quest is named Dennis Cranmer, which is also a reference. So judging by that standard, it is quite possible that 99% of people who find it simply don't know anything is up with the name.
Poor Jack. Ghost Trackerz will never be the same again...
Yes but it's rating are through the roof, and it has three spin offs.
I like this scenario so much I've even used it for beginner Delta Green. Replace the landlord with their handler and the sale of the property with an agent sent previously going missing. Neutralizing the horror and somehow disposing of a body in the middle of the city is a neat operation. If the group is particularly quick about it or you're going for a marathon, you can tie in Last Things Last seamlessly.
I recently ran The Haunting using the modern day idea you mentioned, and it was amazing. During the dagger encounter, two of my players were scrambling for their character's phone flashlights while another grabbed the NPC Camera Operator's night vision camera to try and see this thing. Thank you for all the helpful advice!
What was your game setup? I am planning something similar.
There are a lot of good handouts on the web, but be careful about the dates. I used some and didn't realize that the creators had changed dates, which led to some confusion during the game.
I made the same mistake...
Yeah, found a set where the date from one article was dated 21 June 1866 describing an event on 4 September 1866. Also, something potentially an issue only if the players are sticklers for details, some of the articles created with Boston Globe mastheads date from before the Globe was established.
@@rob7953 I also had this same date and location problem with The Auction. There are newspaper handouts "out there" but they are set in London. So I created my own newspaper handouts for an English language newspaper in Vienna.
@@rob7953 Similarly, if you're really picky and have ever read through old newspapers, a lot of the newspaper handouts out there have relatively modern layouts yet are supposed to be from the 1820s or 1860s.
Great video as always! This summer I played my first CoC adventure, and only realized now it was The Haunting: what an incredible oneshot... it ended with a total party kill, but we had a great time anyway!
Anyway, I'd like to thank both Seth and all you people in the comment section: even though I'm a WarHammer GM, this channel greatly helped me both relaxing and improving my GMing skills during this mad and dark year. Thank you all, really.
(sorry for my poor English, not a native speaker)
I ran a version of this where the Investigators were all passengers on a plane that is forced to ditch in the middle of a winter storm. They took shelter in the house and stumbled across what was going on. It ended up being a springboard for a loosely connected series of adventures where some Investigators were still haunted by what they saw in the old haunted house.
We need more GhostTrackerz Jack. If he survived the knife that is.
i think he should just die in every appearance.
*clutching the knife and bleeding out* "Make sure to like and subscribe! *Ugh* And be sure to ring the bell to be notified for my next video! (drops out of frame) And follow on social media! I'll be launching a GoFundMe soon..."
I saw the thumbnail, thought "I'm not that into Cthulhu" then it did the little animated segment and it was the costumed interjection part and I was like "but I do like Seth's videos"...
The Haunting introduced me to Call of Cthulhu and your older The Haunting Review introduced me to your channel. Time really flies.
Thanks for not deleting the original video. I still think a playlist of "defunct" Seth videos would be cool.
I like your ideas for failed Library Use rolls. I usually just make it take twice as long to find the information but these are great. Definitely going to use them in the future. I feel like each scenario should have a couple of false leads or incorrect information for critical failures, personally.
The Haunting was actually the second scenario I ran (third if you count me running Crack'd and Crook'd Manse TWICE before it - the second time being people looking for the disappearing first party which ended in a tpk). It took two sessions, a character death, and some intense roleplaying when someone came looking for that first dead character by breaking into one of the survivors' houses while he was gone and waiting for him in the dark with a gun. We had a blast with it.
Corbitt never used the summon spell in mine though he did replace his dead body on the mat with the corpse of the dead investigator from the first game session. It was a bit of a surprise when they attacked it, only to find it was their old buddy. Good times.
The bed was a blast. My own players were taken in by it and one of them knocked out a window. They messed around in the room, the photographer setting up his camera. As he prepared for the shot, the others noticed the light bulb in the ceiling slowly filling up with a red substance that looked like blood. Just as the photographer set off the flash powder, the bulb burst, sending blood all over the room.
Nice stabbing jack bit there at the end.
I appreciate that your videos have a mid-2000s CZcams quality to them. That’s not a knock. Contemporary YT videos have a bunch of hyper-active hard cuts and RGB lightning. Your vids look polished, are well lit, and feature good content without being trendy or obnoxious.
Seth looks so happy at the prospect of weirding-out his players.
As a GM who has successfully weirded out my players, I can tell you that it is some of the most fun a GM can have. :-)
@@nolgroth I once ran a CoC game in which the PCs attended a fancy party in a creepy stately home, and everyone had to play hide-and-seek. :D
@@euansmith3699 Sounds fun as all get-out. I miss roleplaying. The camaraderie, the war stories, the running in sheer terror from horrors unimaginable...what's not to like?
The haunting works to well because corbitt and a good gm have the exact same goal: scaring both the players and characters. If you can do BOTH you're a good keeper. Learn from Seth.
Hi seth, great video. I ran this adventure for Halloween, and I held it twice for two different groups. I am one of those people who used the Dimension Shambler as a real threat in the story but what I wanted to do is create a clear warning to spook them before they fall into danger. The way I did this was to create an additional section of Corbitt’s house which became the attic. The way it worked was that whenever the player characters would investigate the basement door, they would notice how the doorway had been locked with a sturdy padlock. I put a hard difficulty to break it and placed the key to the basement inside the old cupboard in the attic. I believe the reason for the key being up there is that the last family feared the basement and never wanted anything to do with it, so they left the key in the attic with Corbitt’s journal which i also moved there.
The way I used the shambler was to scare them after they are done reading Corbitt’s journal. They move through the attic and are surrounded by sinister mannequins and dusty furniture, they find Corbitt’s journal and the basement key in the same compartment. Just after they are done reading the journal, then they would hear the echo of claws that rakes just above them on the roof. In a moment, a strange shape would quickly move past the attic window, a dark creature that neither of the investigators can describe as even remotely human. This is a perfect time for Corbitt to turn off the power to the house when they climb back downstairs and begin to make their way to the basement. The shambler would appear in the kitchen, then within a round it would go to the dining hall, and on the third round it would go to the living room with the fireplace. This gives the players time to hurry down into the basement before the creature finds them.
I agree that the rules of the shambler is one thing that might create problems, this is why i felt it was better for me to just create the summon as a part of the story instead and just guarantee that it was always summoned and bound to Corbitt. Everybody had great fun and one of my groups actually managed to kill the shambler by placing a double barrel beneath its chin. It worked out for me and my group atleast but i do not know how it could work for others. Great video Seth, keep it up.
I was a little worried for a moment that you had deleted the original video since I’ve watched it several times and since it was Jack’s debut. I’m happy to see both an updated video and that you haven’t done away with the original (which I thought was a perfectly fine review and still enjoy watching).
I wanted to thank you. 2020 was particularly bad for me and your channel really helped get me through it. I love watching your videos and all of the work you put into them. Seeing you and the "guys" helped keep me going and let me forget the world around me for a short time.
So after watching this, I ran the scenario as you (brilliantly) suggested as a reality TV show crew. Their show is called Ghost Flippers, a combination of Ghost Hunters and House Flipping.
I've run them through the Skorkowsky circuit from The Haunting to The Dead Light to, now, The Shadow Over Providence.
It has been a huge success for our table. Thank you SO MUCH Seth for such a wonderful idea.
I've run this 3 times, played it more often as new groups formed. One of my regular GM's made it super memorable for my group, and even allowed us to capture the knife and making it a psychotic familiar. Thank you Sandy Perterson, thank you Seth for talking about it today.
Corbitt was apparently a great artist! His drawing of the dagger is beautiful.
Seth, I wanted to thank you for this episode, it was without a doubt the single greatest resource in running my first CoC game! Thank you!
One thing that I did that I think went over well was the radio in the living room. I set up my phone to have Spotify up and had a playlist of 1920's music. And at random times, I would hit play with the volume rather loud so the players couldn't avoid hearing it. They would run back into the living room, turn off the radio, and later it would come back on. They would unplug it, it would come back on, plugged in! They even took tubes out of it, putting the tubes in their pockets. But later, the radio would come back on, and the tubes were gone from their pocket. They eventually started just lugging this radio around with them to avoid it playing!
They eventually went into the basement where Corbitt killed three of them and the other two (including a player who came in late and was playing Mr Knotts) ran out of the house screaming, getting in Knotts car and literally fleeing Boston and never coming back.
It was GREAT!
12:17 Ended up doing this with a hardheaded female irish reporter named Jeanette Voordran. She later ended up a PC after that player's usual character ended up in the hospital after a shotgun blast to the leg and needed to recover.
Jeanette later ended up getting her head torn off by the shoggoth in "The Condemned".
This adventure is kind of like CoC’s “Keep on the Borderlands” - it’s such a common touchstone for so many CoC gamers.
Like a lot of people, my first ever Call of Cthulhu experience was with The Haunting. It was amazing and I love that what has become the starter adventure is just so well-made -- a wonderful short-but-sweet little adventure that just works.
I caught your "cheap as free" reference to 'Strong Bad' same wavelength Seth keep it up.
As a first time CoC Keeper who just finished running his group through the Haunting, your video was an invaluable resource. Plus my PCs had a blast!
They learned about the church and the fact that Corbitt was buried in the basement through their investigation and even got their hands on the Liber Ivonis. I added a cop who was there during the 1917 raid who told the PCs to mind their own business.
They even stumbled into each trap along the way but somehow rolled well enough to avoid taking any damage. And man the knife almost sent them running!
Unfortunately I had to cut the Corbitt fight a little short because we were running low on time, but; they even figured out that stabbing him with his own dagger finished him instantly.
Going to run them through a few of the starter adventures from the starter kit, hopefully edge of darkness.
Seth, I hope your proud of bringing a new group of investigators into the game.
Love the channel !!! Finally survived on my second campaign of Cthulhu we actually played the haunting ! Lady of the night Jasmine Boudreaux ! Thanks so much for helping me and my group getting into call of Cthulhu ! Here’s to another amazing year !
In one game I ran, the looming threat for the Delta Green team was that the TV show "Ghosts and Bros," a show themed on some bros trying to talk smack to ghosts to get them to manifest were scheduled to come to this home in a few weeks. They were sure the cast would be killed, so they needed to act fast to eliminate any actual threat.
Seth your videos are the reason that I ended up actually getting into call of Cthulhu 4 years ago with that haunting video. it was the first game I hosted with my friends and we all loved it and have gone on to play a few more scenarios. thanks for all your wonderful content and this is really a nice blast from the past
Your original version of this review was the first of your videos I saw and it got me to pick up COC after a 20 year hiatus, and I couldn't be happier that I did so. Nice to see you updating it!
Hey Seth, I thank you for all the effort that you have put in over this last year (and previous to that too). Any video release always made my day better. I want you to know that you made a pretty crappy year that much brighter. Happy New Year!
That reality tv spin sounds really fun! Especially if you make the reflections of the players phone show Corbitt as they take them out. You could have an old late 90s desktop that just flickers on and gives them some info if you're doing a meta plot or have their tech begin to pick up spooky sounds and slight images from their truck. This adventure is really really versatile like that.
Your first video abou thte Haunting got me started as a keeper just a few months ago, I am incredibly grateful and thankful for your guidance and expertise about TTRPGs! Thank you!
Love You Seth!!
The idea of dressing up as characters for cut aways has always been BRILLIANT!!
I remember watching that older video of yours! You got me into the system and I ran the scenario per your recommendation and it was a blast. I hope even more people will get into it because of your awesome videos!
This was the second review of yours I ever saw, and the one that ultimately caused me to pivot my own group to a Call of Cthulhu campaign with this later this year. Excited to see it refreshed!
I just discovered your channel a few weeks ago... What a trove of invaluable advices ! Thanks a lot for your videos.
Happy New Year !
For the New Year, I ran my usual DnD group through this scenario with a few mods. I added an NPC companion in the vein of Jack named Ted "Teddy" Theodore, kind of a drunk slob, and the party had a great time asking about the (smidgens) of mythos knowledge he had, and taking his crappy canary-yellow chevy all around Boston. I made the chapel of contemplation a seperate location, off in the woods of a fictional Nahansett state park; the party failed both their track and luck rolls, got lost in the woods with a broken flashlight, and almost died of exposure. It culminated with someone making a diving tackle with the flying knife to KO Corbitt at an extreme success. One player flagged me down and said it was the best session he'd had in years.
Question is, how do I follow it up? What are the best 7E scenarios to string along with the end of this adventure?
The 7th edition, LIGHTLESS BEACON is almost as good. Players are trapped at the top of a lighthouse. Watch a film called "cold skin" for ideas. Being trapped against impossible odds SUCKS.
Your old review was invaluable for me in prepping one of my first sessions -- thanks for the brilliant content!
Hey Seth, as much as I love your original video on 'The Haunting' this one staggeringly improved in quality in video and audio. Keep up the amazing work!
About Jack's words: Chaosium really remaked the Haunting in Anniversary Edition. It is really funny.
Just watched your old video on this a few days ago and ran my Haunting scenario yesterday! How serendipitous
Hi Seth! This updates review was awesome and extremely helpful as always. I ran this scenario over the weekend using your advice on getting the players invested in researching the history of Corbitt's House and also on utilizing the spooky things Corbitt could do to freak out the Investigators, which succeeded to great effect. I also ran this in the modern Era with the ghost hunting show as the Investigator team and I highly recommend it to anyone else running this scenario, it makes it really easy for them to get invested in the mystery and playing off each other's skills depending on their role in the group. Can't wait to see what you have next!
Your videos are so enjoyable I find myself watching review of modules for rpgs I don’t even play lol.
Keep up the good work!
I have a feeling we are all characters in a COC scenario for the late 10-11 months.
Anyone else with the same feeling?
😜
Thanks for the video Seth.
I wish you all a happy new year!
Thanks for the very helpful video as usual. I ran the Haunting twice for new players after seeing your old video on it, it worked really well each time. Love the reflection idea!! Will definitely use it next time.
Is it just me or I remember this is like the third review, I remember him making one a little while back, and in that one he pretty much said the same things that he said at the beginning of this.
Well anyways, great job as always.
The ghost hunters at the end remind me of the game Phasmophobia.
I'm glad you decided to redo this video.
That Ghost Trackerz skit was pure gold.
Perfect timing, Seth. My players gave me the CoC books for Christmas, so I'll probably be running this adventure soon!
First video already convinced me to run this as my group's intro to CoC early next year, getting a more updated and helpful video (and a fresh set of helpful suggestions in the comments) is just icing.
OMG Seth. I laughed SO HARD at your parody of the Ghost-Chasers....AARGGHGHG. That got me SO good. You continue to have the best CZcams channel out there! Thanks for your work!
I'm also in love with the idea of running this as a paranormal investigation reality TV show in the modern era. I hope things would line up to allow for a situation like the last Jack gag.
Keep up the great work, Seth. Can tell you're super passionate about it mate. I loved running this scenario years ago too! Made it modern-day in New Zealand (Coromandel) worked well. Corbitt full-on decapitated a PC when they first found in him.
I'm glad you redid this. I ran it more than once, actually adapting it over into a different system.
The Dimensional Shambler is the one reason the investigators shouldn't make a brief look at the outside of the house before researching. It gives Corbett the warning he needs to cast spells.
Also, love the look on your face when you talk about things "getting really strange"! 😆
Great video (again) Seth! Come write for us again soon.
Corbitt is FAR more powerful than the dimensional shambler. He eats those for breakfast. After all...he can summon AND BIND one. He is in process of transforming into a demi God...a shambler isnt.
Hi Seth,
Your old review of "the Haunting" made me start playing CoC7E. It was supposed to be a one-shot, now I have an overarching campaign where my wife IRL is the protagonist PC and we have recurring guests joining as PCs from time to time. Thanks for the heads up. It's totally worth it to talk about this module... again!
Thank you, Seth. This is, if not the first, one of the first adventures I ran as a Keeper. Sadly, I only get to play once every other year at Necronomicon in RI so it is very nice to listen to your review and pretending I am in that game again.
My first Call of Cthulhu game I ran was The Haunting, following the brilliant advice of Seth.
It's nice to see this video remade and remember the good times playing CoC. And how I scared the hell out of my players using a UV torch shined directly at my teeth while roleplaying Crobitt.
Good times, and good video.
I just finished reading through this adventure and I'd love to start a campaign with this. I have some D&D players that may be interested in something new so we'll see. Thanks for the review!
Keeper suggestion: the the 1st floor storage room is a telephone, which rings...its mr knott calling to check on their progress with "his house". He wants to know everything. As conversation passes it gets more bizarre. After the call, players may check to see that...the phone among the storage stuff isn't plugged into the wall...severed long ago. It was corbitt, spying on the characters to see what they know. This is a good way to have fun with your players: "sorry...i decided to lower your fee...", "you guys arent "investigating fast enough"..., "say, could you lock that upstairs window for me?", "i rented the place: you can leave now." "I left a knife in the basement...i think the tip is broken...could you examine that for me?"...etc....
Mr Knott is gonna be surprised when the investigators punch him in the nose in person for the "phone argument"...IMMEDIATE DISMISSAL FROM THE CASE....no more "pesky investigators" for corbitt...all part of his master plan. He is, after all, much smarter than the investigators.
Mr knott: "you wanna throw hands? Come on over here RIGHT NOW and "ill give you what for"." Corbitt in IN PROCESS of transforming into a demi god...best not to underestimate him....
Yoink!
Amazing.
You're such a good actor, Seth. Love your NPCs, they're very convincing.
Hey Seth, I know you're a big cyberpunk 2020 fan, are you gonna review the new cyberpunk red? I'd love to see your take on it!
He posted how he got the book on twitter like last week? So we'll probably see a review in six months to a year knowing Seth lol
@@penguinpanda00 oof lmao
Yup. I could slam out a crappy, click-baity review vid based off my initial reading of it and no first-hand experience playing it, but that would suck. So, I'll play it first. It'll take us time to work in to our play schedule (we have a different campaign going on, and I'm not about to just kill a campaign because a pretty new game came out). Once I have enough time playing it to formulate a solid opinion of what works, what doesn't, and some suggestions based off my experience, I'll get around to reviewing it. A year is a good estimate.
@@SSkorkowsky I think a year is a good time to let people find all the niggling little details that might need to be smoothed over.
@@SSkorkowsky Did you ever set a Call of Cthulhu campaign in the cyberpunk or shadowrun universe? I think having horror in a futuristic setting sounds interesting (Outside of "Jason X" that is. lol)
I am about run this for my brand new group, so this is super helpful! Thanks Seth!
third video I've watched, time to subscribe :D thanks for your cool reviews of CoC campaign
I would love to see your early stuff. And yes I was thinking just tgat about doubg this review. I also remembered you mentioning about redoing them too.
I just got the Call of Cthulhu starter set for Christmas. Looking forward to running this!
Here’s a thought, what if the eye is the symbol of an ostensibly good organization, like how Caduceus is supposed to be a helpful organization that helps out with charity work while combating the myths.
So "The Haunting" is CoC's equivalent to "Food Fight" for Shadowrun? Cool.
And Seth, I love your content, but if we don't get the epic conclusion to that Turtle with a Hat story, you and I are gonna' have words when conventions open back up!
FOOD FIGHT! Though honestly, Food Fight is more of an extended combat introduction than a fleshed out story.
But now that you brought it up, I want to convert The Haunting to a Shadowrun adventure.
The dagger bit at the end-good stuff/funny!
This just showed up in my feed despite being subscribed and having clicked the bell icon but WELL WORTH SEEING!
I greatly appreciate your videos. Your insight and humor are helpful and entertaining.
I would be thrilled if you could improve the volume, upward.
Excellent, loved your og video on this as well. Looking forward to your take on childern of Fear or Masks of Nyarlathotep, I'm running Childern of Fear now.
Rewatching this one as I slowly move forward to setting this up for my group.
The original haunting review is how I found your channel. It is a classic. It feels weird to be updating it to a new edition, but I suppose that is very appropriate to the content.
I am happy to see this new video for this campaign. I used that video to help learn to play tabletop games.
One caveat on "not intended for use" abilities that some bosses have for flavour is that there WILL be a party out there that backs said boss into a corner, where their only logical option is to use said feature.
That aside, they can be a really great way of having a very powerful opponent (in any game, really) that the group can still take on, because most of their power is of a kind that is impractical to use against a group of PCs (unless of course they manage to force it somehow, see above).
And thanks for giving us all video fodder in the otherwise somewhat dry times around new year. :)
This is the first Call of Cthulhu scenario I ever ran. Used a few of your ideas from the original video, though my “Jack the NPC” was a creole from New Orleans named Moses.
The session was a blast. One fond memory I have is the scene with the bed. One character went to investigate the sounds in the room, got locked in the room and then pushed out the window as he was trying to escape. I rolled damage and rolled the absolute minimum.
Hearing the crash, the rest of the group busted down the door to find everything fine. They looked out the intact and closed window to find the character picking himself off the ground and heading back inside.
I run a homebrew RPG system/universe that I've been slowly crafting over the years with a sibling, and in the last year or so of watching your videos, I've looked more closely into Call of Cthulhu. I've taken elements from several of these adventures to spice up some of my own RPs, be they in my universe or some other one. This one in particular has been mined a few times now. It's such a short and sweet adventure, yet offers quite a lot. Something to be said about the simple ideas being the best for adaptation.
I adapted some bits for a Nightmare on Elm Street role play several months back. Since it was a 1-on-1 RP, the player would alternate between two characters. There was an evil psychiatric doctor that was going to use a ritual to bind Freddy Krueger to steal his power, a PC that was stuck inside the Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital with other teens, the other character the player had was outside and trying to stop Krueger and solve the mystery, and Krueger's bones were missing from the location they had originally been in. The entire RP was sort of like a remake of the first three NOES films. A guy named Willem Shaye had been visited in his dreams by Krueger who intimidated him into relocating his bones to keep them safe from both the mad doctor and the hero. With a second PC and a bunch of likable teens locked in the institute, this added a great ticking clock factor as Freddy was slowly torturing and killing them off.
So the hero is searching, but the entire way through she had my own type of "Jack the NPC" helping her; a guy named Simon using Ernie Hudson for his appearance reference. Yes, a Ghostbuster helping to stop Freddy. Much like Jack in Seth's game, I had Simon hung over like all hell, not too dissimilar from Dream Warriors with Nancy's dad being a washed up, drunken cop. This kept the PC as the main focus. Using other elements from The Haunting, this turned into one of my favorite RPs. There was investigation, research, sneaking around a poorly guarded asylum at night with the second (narcoleptic) PC, real world threats like some hired goon that murdered Shaye to retrieve the bones for the doctor's ritual, and not to mention the dream world and Freddy himself.
Run in 1650 Amsterdam using Lamentations of the Flame Princess. The adventure is the gift that keeps giving.
I hope to run this some day soon.
Been watching awhile great content.
This was the first CoC game that I ran for a group of new players to the game and myself as a new Keeper. we played at a friend's family cabin out in the woods, it had been in the 20s an actual speak easy and brothel. We started playing at 10:30-11 PM and wrapped about 1 AM. It went better than I expected but then again the location did a lot of work for me.
i really like the idea of a cthulhu campain where you are a team of reality tv hunted house hunter
Running this in the upcoming weeks, glad to hear your thoughts.
Fabulous ideas. Think I'll run this again with a new group.
Love the new/ updated reviews, @Seth Skorkowsky, especially ones geared for new Keepers. With that in mind, how about a review of Dead Man Stomp, the only other one from the Starter Set yet to be covered???
I plugged the CoC adventure in as the start of a Victorian DnD campaign. I made Corbitt a full vampire and filled the house with goblin servants. Players simply knocked on the door and got served tea while they waited for the master of the house to "return".
Properly run, the haunting is VERY VERY deadly for investigators. Welcome to call of cthulhu.
Some of my regular Cyberpunk Red group couldn't make it the last time we tried to play, so we picked up a couple extra people and I ran this scenario, instead. We ended up with a group of 5 players, all with at least some roleplaying experience, mostly with D&D and related systems, but none of us had played CoC before. This video was a great help to me when I was preparing the adventure!
The group's luck was good, which is why no one died and no one even went temporarily insane, and there were probably a bit too many investigators for this adventure, but they still had more than enough trouble. One person was knocked out by the bed defenestrating them. The knife knocked one person out before they managed to pin it down, Corbitt managed to take over the private detective's mind during the final battle and the only thing that saved them from losing even more people was that the detective had run out of bullets by the time Corbitt had him in his thrall.
In spite of their inexperience, my players all took to Call of Cthulhu like Deep Ones to water. They were thorough and effective, finding every clue in the book and then some. They were great sports, being willing to take risks and expose themselves to the various scares in the scenario. In fact, they were so terrified of going into the basement that they tried to hire an exorcist to do it for them! They loved the slower pacing of the investigation and it was a great change of pace for me, too. We all had an absolute blast, we'll likely be playing more investigative games and I'd like to thank you for your part in that. So thank you very much for the recommendation and for your help!
Wonderful to hear!
I ran this as my first game as keeper (thanks to your videos!). I loved this mission, and my players still remember the damn bed.
The fight went on for quite a whole though as they never figured out to use the knife
Love the outtake or whatever you call it of the Ghost TrackerZ.... The dagger... great stuff... LOL